“What a man!” the governor thought with admiration, gazing respectfully at Sipiagin. He gave the order and a minute later Sila Paklin stood before him.
Paklin bowed very low to the governor as he came in, but catching sight of Markelov before he had time to raise himself, remained as he was, half bent down, fidgetting with his cap. Markelov looked at him vacantly, but could hardly have recognised him, as he withdrew into his own thoughts.
“Is this the branch?” the governor asked, pointing to Paklin with a long white finger adorned with a turquoise ring.
“Oh, no!” Sipiagin exclaimed with a slight smile. “However, who knows!” he added after a moment’s thought. “Your excellency,” he said aloud, “the gentleman before you is Mr. Paklin. He comes from St. Petersburg and is a close friend of a certain person who for a time held the position of tutor in my house and who ran away, taking with him a certain young girl who, I blush to say, is my niece.
“Ah! oui, oui,” the governor mumbled, shaking his head, “I heard the story... The princess told me — ”
Sipiagin raised his voice.
“That person is a certain Mr. Nejdanov, whom I strongly suspect of dangerous ideas and theories — ”
“Un rouge a tous crins,” Kollomietzev put in.
“Yes, dangerous ideas and theories,” Sipiagin repeated more emphatically. “He must certainly know something about this propaganda. He is... in hiding, as I have been informed by Mr. Paklin, in the merchant Falyaeva’s factory — ”
At these words Markelov threw another glance at Paklin and gave a slow, indifferent smile.
“Excuse me, excuse me, your excellency,” Paklin cried, “and you, Mr. Sipiagin, I never... never — ”
“Did you say the merchant Falyaeva?” the governor asked, turning to Sipiagin and merely shaking his fingers in Paklin’s direction, as much as to say, “Gently, my good man, gently.” “What is coming over our respectable, bearded merchants? Only yesterday one was arrested in connection with this affair. You may have heard of him — Golushkin, a very rich man. But he’s harmless enough. He won’t make revolutions; he’s grovelling on his knees already.”
“The merchant Falyaeva has nothing whatever to do with it,” Sipiagin began; “I know nothing of his ideas; I was only talking of his factory where Mr. Nejdanov is to be found at this very moment, as Mr. Paklin says — ”
“I said nothing of the kind!” Paklin cried; “you said it yourself!”
“Excuse me, Mr. Paklin,” Sipiagin pronounced with the same relentless precision, “I admire that feeling of friendship which prompts you to deny it.” (“A regular Guizot, upon my word!” the governor thought to himself.) “But take example by me. Do you suppose that the feeling of kinship is less strong in me than your feeling of friendship? But there is another feeling, my dear sir, yet stronger still, which guides all our deeds and actions, and that is duty!”
“Le sentiment du devoir,” Kollomietzev explained.
Markelov took both the speakers in at a glance.
“Your excellency!” he exclaimed, “I ask you a second time; please have me removed out of sight of these babblers.”
But there the governor lost patience a little.
“Mr. Markelov!” he pronounced severely, “I would advise you, in your present position, to be a little more careful of your tongue, and to show a little more respect to your elders, especially when they give expression to such patriotic sentiments as those you have just heard from the lips of your beau - frere! I shall be delighted, my dear Boris,” he added, turning to Sipiagin, “to tell the minister of your noble action. But with whom is this Nejdanov staying at the factory?”
Sipiagin frowned.
“With a certain Mr. Solomin, the chief engineer there, Mr. Paklin says.”
It seemed to afford Sipiagin some peculiar pleasure in tormenting poor Sila. He made him pay dearly for the cigar he had given him and the playful familiarity of his behaviour.
“This Solomin,” Kollomietzev put in, “is an out - and - out radical and republican. It would be a good thing if your excellency were to turn your attention to him too.”
“Do you know these gentlemen... Solomin, and what’s his name. .. Nejdanov?” the governor asked Markelov, somewhat authoritatively.
Markelov distended his nostrils malignantly.
“Do you know Confucius and Titus Livius, your excellency?”
The governor turned away.
“Il n’y a pas moyen de causer avec cette homme,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Baron, come here, please.”
The adjutant went up to him quickly and Paklin seized the opportunity of limping over to Sipiagin.
“What are you doing?” he asked in a whisper. “Why do you want to ruin your niece? Why, she’s with him, with Nejdanov!”
“I am not ruining any one, my dear sir,” Sipiagin said loudly, “I am only doing what my conscience bids me do, and — ”
“And what your wife, my sister, bids you do; you dare not stand up against her!” Markelov exclaimed just as loudly.
Sipiagin took no notice of the remark; it was too much beneath him!
“Listen,” Paklin continued, trembling all over with agitation, or may be from timidity; there was a malignant light in his eyes and the tears were nearly choking him — tears of pity for them and rage at himself; “listen, I told you she was married — it wasn’t true, I lied! but they must get married — and if you prevent it, if the police get there — there will be a stain on your conscience which you’ll never be able to wipe out — and you — ”
“If what you have just told me be true,” Sipiagin interrupted him still more loudly, “then it can only hasten the measures which I think necessary to take in this matter; and as for the purity of my conscience, I beg you not to trouble about that, my dear sir.
“It’s been polished,” Markelov put in again; “there is a coat of St. Petersburg varnish upon it; no amount of washing will make it come clean. You may whisper as much as you like, Mr. Paklin, but you won’t get anything out of it!”
At this point the governor considered it necessary to interfere.
“I think that you have said enough, gentlemen,” he began, “and I’ll ask you, my dear baron, to take Mr. Markelov away. N’est ce pas, Boris, you don’t want him any further — ”
Sipiagin made a gesture with his hands.
“I said everything I could think of!”
“Very well, baron!”
The adjutant came up to Markelov, clinked his spurs, made a horizontal movement of the hand, as if to request Markelov to make a move; the latter turned and walked out. Paklin, only in imagination it is true, but with bitter sympathy and pity, shook him by the hand.
“We’ll send some of our men to the factory,” the governor continued; “but you know, Boris, I thought this gentleman” (he moved his chin in Paklin’s direction) “told you something about your niece... I understood that she was there at the factory. Then how...”
“It’s impossible to arrest her in any case,” Sipiagin remarked thoughtfully; “perhaps she will think better of it and return. I’ll write her a note, if I may.”
“Do please. You may be quite sure... nous offrerons le quidam ... mais nous sommes galants avec les dames et avec celle - la donc!”
“But you’ve made no arrangements about this Solomin,” Kollomietzev exclaimed plaintively. He had been on the alert all the while, trying to catch what the governor and Sipiagin were saying. “I assure you he’s the principal ringleader! I have a wonderful instinct about these things!”
“Pas trop de zele, my dear Simion Petrovitch,” the governor remarked with a smile. “You remember Talleyrand! If it is really as you say the fellow won’t escape us. You had better think of your — ” the governor put his hand to his throat significantly. “By the way,” he said, turning to Sipiagin, “et ce gaillard - la” (he moved his chin in Paklin’s direction). “Qu’enferons nous? He does not appear very dangerous.”
“Let him go
,” Sipiagin said in an undertone, and added in German, “Lass’ den Lumpen laufen!”
He imagined for some reason that he was quoting from Goethe’s Gotz von Berlichingen.
“You can go, sir!” the governor said aloud. “We do not require you any longer. Good day.”
Paklin bowed to the company in general and went out into the street completely crushed and humiliated. Heavens! this contempt had utterly broken him.
“Good God! What am I? A coward, a traitor?” he thought, in unutterable despair. “Oh, no, no! I am an honest man, gentlemen! I have still some manhood left!”
But who was this familiar figure sitting on the governor’s step and looking at him with a dejected, reproachful glance? It was Markelov’s old servant. He had evidently come to town for his master, and would not for a moment leave the door of his prison. But why did he look so reproachfully at Paklin? He had not betrayed Markelov!
“And why did I go poking my nose into things that did not concern me? Why could I not sit quietly at home? And now it will be said and written that Paklin betrayed them — betrayed his friends to the enemy!” He recalled the look Markelov had given him and his last words, “Whisper as much as you like, Mr. Paklin, but you won’t get anything out of it!” and then these sad, aged, dejected eyes! he thought in desperation. And as it says in the scriptures, he “wept bitterly” as he turned his steps towards the oasis, to Fomishka and Fimishka and Snandulia.
XXXVI
WHEN Mariana came out of her room that morning she noticed Nejdanov sitting on the couch fully dressed. His head was resting against one arm, while the other lay weak and helpless on his knee. She went up to him.
“Goodmorning, Alexai. Why, you haven’t undressed? Haven’t you slept? How pale you are!”
His heavy eyelids rose slowly.
“No, I haven’t.”
“Aren’t you well, or is it the after - effects of yesterday?”
Nejdanov shook his head.
“I couldn’t sleep after Solomin went into your room.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
“Alexai! are you jealous? A new idea! What a time to be jealous in! Why, he was only with me a quarter of an hour. We talked about his cousin, the priest, and discussed arrangements for our marriage.”
“I know that he was only with you a short time. I saw him come out. And I’m not jealous, oh no! But still I couldn’t fall asleep after that.”
“But why?”
Nejdanov was silent.
“I kept thinking... thinking... thinking!”
“Of what?”
“Oh, of you... of him... and of myself.”
“And what came of all your thinking?”
“Shall I tell you?”
“Yes, tell me.”
“It seemed to me that I stood in your way — in his... and in my own.”
“Mine? His? It’s easy to see what you mean by that, though you declare you’re not jealous, but your own?”
“Mariana, there are two men in me and one doesn’t let the other live. So I thought it might be better if both ceased to live.”
“Please don’t, Alexai. Why do you want to torment yourself and me? We ought to be considering ways and means of getting away. They won’t leave us in peace you know.”
Nejdanov took her hand caressingly.
“Sit down beside me, Mariana, and let us talk things over like comrades while there is still time. Give me your hand. It would be a good thing for us to have an explanation, though they say that all explanations only lead to further muddle. But you are kind and intelligent and are sure to understand, even the things that I am unable to express. Come, sit down.”
Nejdanov’s voice was soft, and a peculiarly affectionate tenderness shone in his eyes as he looked entreatingly at Mariana.
She sat down beside him readily and took his hand.
“Thanks, dearest. I won’t keep you long. I thought out all the things I wanted to say to you last night. Don’t think I was too much upset by yesterday’s occurrence. I was no doubt extremely ridiculous and rather disgusting, but I know you didn’t think anything bad of me — you know me. I am not telling the truth exactly when I say that I wasn’t upset — I was horribly upset, not because I was brought home drunk, but because I was convinced of my utter inefficiency. Not because I could not drink like a real Russian — but in everything! everything! Mariana, I must tell you that I no longer believe in the cause that united us and on the strength of which we ran away together. To tell the truth, I had already lost faith when your enthusiasm set me on fire again. I don’t believe in it! I can’t believe in it!”
He put his disengaged hand over his eyes and ceased for awhile. Mariana did not utter a single word and sat looking downwards. She felt that he had told her nothing new.
“I always thought,” Nejdanov continued, taking his hand away from his eyes, but not looking at Mariana again, “that I believed in the cause itself, but had no faith in myself, in my own strength, my own capacities. I used to think that my abilities did not come up to my convictions... But you can’t separate these things. And what’s the use of deceiving oneself? No — I don’t believe in the cause itself. And you, Mariana, do you believe in it?”
Mariana sat up straight and raised her head.
“Yes, I do, Alexai. I believe in it with all the strength of my soul, and will devote my whole life to it, to the last breath!”
Nejdanov turned towards her and looked at her enviously, with a tender light in his eyes.
“I knew you would answer like that. So you see there is nothing for us to do together; you have severed our tie with one blow.”
Mariana was silent.
“Take Solomin, for instance,” Nejdanov began again, “though he does not believe — ”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s quite true. He does not believe... but that is not necessary for him; he is moving steadily onwards. A man walking along a road in a town does not question the existence of the town — he just goes his way. That is Solomin. That is all that’s needed. But I... I can’t go ahead, don’t want to turn back, and am sick of staying where I am. How dare I ask anyone to be my companion? You know the old proverb, ‘With two people to carry the pole, the burden will be easier.’ But if you let go your end — what becomes of the other?”
“Alexai,” Mariana began irresolutely, “I think you exaggerate. Do we not love each other?”
Nejdanov gave a deep sigh.
“Mariana... I bow down before you... you pity me, and each of us has implicit faith in the other’s honesty — that is our position. But there is no love between us.”
“Stop, Alexai! what are you saying? The police may come for us today... we must go away together and not part — ”
“And get Father Zosim to marry us at Solomin’s suggestion. I know that you merely look upon our marriage as a kind of passport — a means of avoiding any difficulties with the police... but still it will bind us to some extent; necessitate our living together and all that. Besides it always presupposes a desire to live together.”
“What do you mean, Alexai? You don’t intend staying here?”
Nejdanov said hesitatingly. The word “yes” nearly escaped his lips, but he recollected himself in time.
“Then you are going to a different place — not where I am going?”
Nejdanov pressed her hand which still lay in his own.
“It would indeed be vile to leave you without a supporter, without a protector, but I won’t do that, as bad as I may be. You shall have a protector — rest assured.”
Mariana bent down towards him and, putting her face close against his, looked anxiously into his eyes, as though trying to penetrate to his very soul.
“What is the matter, Alexai? What have you on your mind? Tell me ... you frighten me. Your words are so strange and enigmatical ... And your face! I have never seen your face like that!”
Nejdanov put her from him gently and kissed her hand te
nderly. This time she made no resistance and did not laugh, but sat still looking at him anxiously.
“Don’t be alarmed, dear. There is nothing strange in it. They say Markelov was beaten by the peasants; he felt their blows — they crushed his ribs. They did not beat me, they even drank with me — drank my health — but they crushed my soul more completely than they did Markelov’s ribs. I was born out of joint, wanted to set myself right, and have made matters worse. That is what you notice in my face.”
“Alexai,” Mariana said slowly, “it would be very wrong of you not to be frank with me.”
He clenched his hands.
“Mariana, my whole being is laid bare before you, and whatever I might do, I tell you beforehand, nothing will really surprise you; nothing whatever!”
Mariana wanted to ask him what he meant, but at that moment Solomin entered the room.
His movements were sharper and more rapid than usual. His eyes were half closed, his lips compressed, the whole of his face wore a drier, harder, somewhat rougher expression.
“My dear friends,” he began, “I must ask you not to waste time, but prepare yourselves as soon as possible. You must be ready in an hour. You have to go through the marriage ceremony. There is no news of Paklin. His horses were detained for a time at Arjanov and then sent back. He has been kept there. They’ve no doubt brought him to town by this time. I don’t think he would betray us, but he might let things out unwittingly. Besides, they might have guessed from the horses. My cousin has been informed of your coming. Pavel will go with you. He will be a witness.”
“And you... and you?” Nejdanov asked. “Aren’t you going? I see you’re dressed for the road,” he added, indicating Solomin’s high boots with his eyes.
“Oh, I only put them on... because it’s rather muddy outside.”
“But you won’t be held responsible for us, will you?”
Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated) Page 124